Volume 84, Nº 2 (2023)

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has been and remains the main cause of dementia in aging patients. This neurodegenerative disease belongs to the progressive and socially significant ones. There are several hypotheses for the development of AD: the tau hypothesis, the amyloid cause, the cholinergic cause, the cause of oxidative stress and inflammation. The lack of a generally accepted understanding of the etiology and pathogenesis of AD hinders the development of new effective mechanisms for its treatment and prevention. In 2021, for the first time, a drug for pathogenetic therapy of AD (aducanumab) was approved, which helps to reduce the content of amyloid-β peptide (Aβ) in the brain of patients. Another promising approach to the treatment of AD, aimed at removing Aβ from the patient’s central nervous system, is the impact on human serum albumin (HSA), which carries 90% of Aβ in the blood serum and 40–90% of Aβ in the cerebrospinal fluid. In clinical practice, plasmapheresis has already been tested and shown to be effective with the replacement of one’s own HSA with a purified therapeutic albumin preparation. Another variant of this approach is to enhance the interaction of HSA with Aβ through the action of exogenous and endogenous HSA ligands, such as serotonin, ibuprofen and some unsaturated fatty acids. In vivo studies confirm the association of this group of ligands with the pathogenesis of AD. These substances are well-studied natural metabolites or drugs, which greatly simplifies the development of new methods of therapy and prevention of AD with their use. In general, a new direction of scientific research devoted to the study of HSA as a carrier and depot of Aβ in the blood and cerebrospinal fluid will expand our understanding of Aβ metabolism and its role in the pathogenesis of AD.

Eritrichium caucasicum is an alpine short-lived perennial species endemic for the Caucasus. The stage structure of a local population has been observed on permanent plots in the alpine belt of the Northwestern Caucasus annually for 13 years (2009–2021), accumulating data of the “identified individuals from unknown parents” type. The latter circumstance has predetermined what is called reproductive uncertainty in the terminology of matrix models for discrete-structured population dynamics and means that the annual recruitment rates inherent in the groups of generative plants and final flowering generative plants cannot be calibrated in a uniquely way. As a result, instead of the annual values of the asymptotic growth rate, the model gives only certain ranges of their values that vary from year to year, corresponding to the data. This introduces both technical difficulties and uncertainty in the viability forecast based on the asymptotic growth rates. A well-known alternative approach is to estimate the stochastic growth rate λ_S, but only artificial modes of randomness involved in the calculation of λ_S have been proposed in the literature. Our realistic model of randomness is related to variations in weather and microclimatic conditions of the habitat. It is reconstructed from a fairly long (60 years) time series of the weather indicator. Using this realistic model in Monte Carlo calculations of λ_S, we have obtained a more reliable and accurate estimate of the stochastic growth rate.

In order to preserve biodiversity on Earth, it is necessary to carry out an inventory of all forms of life as soon as possible, and this task is especially relevant for little-studied territories, including Russia. The terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems of Russia represent the largest array of natural extratropical ecosystems in Eurasia. To solve the problem of inventorying flora and fauna, biological collections are of particular importance; in a number of reviews by scientists (mainly foreign ones) the attention of the scientific and civil community is drawn to the problem of preserving and increasing the use of collections. The article examines the role of herbaria in the study of biodiversity in Russia based on a quantitative analysis of collections, their representation in various regions of the country, the degree of their digitalization and integration into the global world network of biological collections. It is concluded that the herbarium fund of Russia is insufficient in terms of the number of specimens and unevenly distributed across the regions, the smallest number of plant specimens is available for a number of regions of the north-east of Russia. About half of all Russian herbaria are not registered in Index Herbariorum, although the pace of digitalization of botanical collections in Russia has somewhat accelerated in recent decades. It also highlights the problem of the preservation of herbarium collections, outlines ways to solve it and prospects for the use of herbaria in the future. The authors believe that the priority measures should be: 1) the formation of a regulatory framework for working with biocollections, which, in particular, will make it possible to recognize herbarium collections as objects of cultural and scientific heritage, and provide special funding for collections; 2) introduction into the practice of centralized accounting of Russian herbaria and their inclusion in the international database; 3) a ban on writing off herbarium collections by organizations; 4) increasing the pace of digitalization of botanical collections; 5) staffing of herbaria by professional researchers; introducing of a herbarium course in specialized universities; 6) the allocation of separate rooms for herbariums, equipped with specialized cabinets and ventilation.